


Chronic Gravity

by petrichorstarlight (goldkirk)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anxiety, But no one dies, Chronic Illness, ESPECIALLY NOT MARCO, Encouragement, F/M, Gen, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Illnesses, NO ONE DIES IN THIS OKAY, although a few of them come close, but you could take it as that if you want, not a lot of pairings, that's a promise, they may all be wrecks, this is mostly just a lot of friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 14:06:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3329102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldkirk/pseuds/petrichorstarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chronic health problems are serious, irritating, and life changing things, as Mina Carolina is quickly finding out. Luckily, she's not alone—in fact, she feels more like she's been thrown into a three-ring circus made up of treatments, crazy fellow patients, and unconventional health professionals.</p>
<p>All in all, the whole hospital experience was feeling strangely like one of those bad 80s sitcoms, complete with spiked coffee, bad group sing-alongs, weird methods of artistic expression, and enough crazy teenage shenanigans to last the poor nurses a lifetime.</p>
<p>(AKA a modern AU that explores the serious side of chronic illnesses but also has a lot of humor to keep it from being depressing. Also, Eren with glasses.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chronic Gravity

There's no feeling like sitting in the doctor's office and feeling your heart tumbling off a cliff.

Mina was feeling sick, dizzy and out of it whenever she was standing, and sitting wasn't much better unless she slouched. That was not normal. Like anyone would, she told an adult what was going on, got a doctor's appointment, and figured it would be figured out and taken care of pretty quickly. 

Unfortunately, life has a way of not working out the way you want it to.

* * *

 

"What do you mean, _you don't know_?"

The doctor ran his fingers up through his prematurely-graying hair and sighed. "I'm sorry. We can't find anything in the tests that's causing the symptoms here. Obviously you're experiencing them, because I was able to see that last time with the blood pressure and pulse checks. You're having the symptoms, but we're not seeing any cause."

"So you're telling me," said Mina, "that I'm feeling awful most of the time I'm awake, and that you've verified I'm not imagining it or exaggerating, but you have no idea why it's happening. You're saying that I'm sick, but I'm not actually sick."

"It's a little more complicated than that, but...basically, yes." The doctor sat down on his stool.

"Awesome. I want a second opinion."

* * *

The second opinion was "These symptoms usually happen when there are heart problems or circulatory issues but you don't seem to have either. I'm sorry I can't tell you anything new with this."

"Thanks for trying. Can you recommend me someone for a third opinion?"

The third opinion was "It could just be stress. Some people get heart palpitations when they're under constant stress or anxiety, that may be what's going on here."

"This isn't just heart palpitations," Mina replied, then walked out the door.

* * *

 

Her current foster parents were wonderful people, and Mina had a great relationship with them. For the last couple of months they had been talking about adoption, and Mina was happier than she'd ever been. It was going to work out this time. It was almost a miracle, too, since she was already sixteen. Most kids didn't get adopted that old, especially when they'd entered the system later in their life like she did.

The couple was concerned, of course, when she started having trouble, and they wanted to help but had no clue what to do. The foster system was so bureaucratic she didn't know if they even COULD do anything. With all the regulations, they couldn't put her on their insurance or deal with medical things for her even though she was a minor. Mina kept having to go through her social worker, who was getting tired of all the paperwork.

"Mina, you're a good kid," he told her when she came to ask for a fourth doctor's consultation. "But aren't you taking this a little far? It's not causing you any major trouble, honey. Can you try to just deal with it for a while and see if it goes away on its own?"

As polite and acquiescent as she acted on the outside, Mina wanted to punch a tree. It wasn't _his_ health status that was unknown. Didn't anyone understand what it was like to  _not know_ if your body was even good enough anymore? What if all this time that no one was figuring out what was wrong with her, it was getting worse and by the time they found it it was too late to fix? What was she supposed to do if her own body wasn't reliable anymore? That was the entire stable foundation of her  _existence._

And he said it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't causing her any major trouble. It was causing enough trouble for her to feel sick all the time. How was that not a big deal? Did she have to be throwing up or having seizures before someone would really take it seriously and try to find out what was going on?

* * *

 

It wasn't serious until it was. 

Mina tried to ignore it and just go on with life. She really did. But when she passed out in third-period PE, it got a little difficult. She was able to brush that off as being dehydrated (because she probably was). But when it happened again when she stood up to do a problem on the board in her Calculus class two days later and hit her head on one of the desks on her way down, she landed herself a trip to the ER in an ambulance.

The next few hours were a whirlwind of fogginess, saline drips, blood tests, not being allowed to see her foster parents (since they weren't listed as her legal guardians) and constant questioning. At least they figured out pretty fast she didn't have a concussion.

"When was the last time you ate?" 

"Lunch in the cafeteria...I had pizza and lemonade"

"How much water do you drink?"

"I have an app that lets me track it. I always drink at least six large glasses a day. Believe me, I'm not dehydrated?"

"Are you on any medications?"

"No."

"Do you have any known allergies medical conditions we should know about?"

"No but I've been having weird heart symptoms going on for a month now that no one's given me a diagnosis for."

They switched gears pretty quickly after that. They did an EKG, which went about the same as the other's she'd had done did. Nothing much to report from it. They wanted her to take a stress test, but she almost blacked out when they tried to get her upright so they abandoned that idea. After the first few hours things started dying down, and finally one doctor came in. 

He was the shortest man Mina had ever seen in her life, and every movement he made screamed precision. She bet he could be deadly if he needed to, and wondered vaguely through her tired fog whether he'd been a Marine or something. The man grabbed the computer screen and swung it around to see her notes, narrowing his eyes. Mina watched silently from where she was laying on the bed, trying to figure out how to react to this sudden and silent intruder. Without any warning, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, slender fingers deftly hitting right above her pulse point as he looked down at his watch intently.

It was one of those leather-strap analog watches, Mina noted. Not only that, but it was one of the really old ones that had to be wound up periodically so they wouldn't stop running. Bit of an odd choice for a busy doctor. (Unless he was a lazy prat who just ran around trying to get out of his duties all day, but he didn't really look like the type.)

"You've been experiencing these symptoms whenever you're upright for over a month now?" he asked suddenly, gray eyes flicking up to her face from under the long fringe of his undercut. 

"Yes."

"Mm." He dropped her wrist and slid a hand under her back as he held his stethoscope tightly against the crook of her arm. Mina didn't want to sit up, she didn't want to start feeling sick again when she was so tired and only just feeling back to normal after laying down for a while, but he made her, keeping a gentle pressure on her back that simultaneously helped her stay upright through the dizziness and forced her to stay in place. After about two minutes of that, he tugged her over to the edge of the bed and made her stand—this time he had to seriously hold her up. That only lasted for thirty seconds max before she really did start blacking out. The next thing she was aware of was the sensation of a cool hand on her neck and being laid back onto the pillow. She blinked her eyes open again and saw the doctor staring at her with a slight frown.

"I'm going to get you moved and talk with a couple of people. You'll see me again later."

He was out of the room before she could even ask for his name.

* * *

 

Apparently Mr. Midget could get stuff done, because within only a couple of hours Mina had been moved to a private room on the teen floor of the youth wing. A really nice intern named Petra got her settled in (she even made sure Mina's homework was within reach on the rolling table) and spent half the time talking to Mina and the other half bickering with a fellow intern named Auruo. At one point Mina thought they might have thrown a few insults at each other in French, but she wasn't sure she believed everything her brain was telling her at the moment. Exhaustion made you think weird things.

Mina didn't realize she'd fallen asleep, but suddenly it was morning and a very energetic woman in a labcoat named Hange was throwing open the blinds, revealing a stunning view of hospital roof. There was even a giant air conditioning unit to look at! How lucky.

"You are way too cheerful for this early in the day," Mina groaned as she rolled away from the light that was pouring in.

"It's already eight-thirty! Look at me, I've been working in the lab and checking machines for three hours already! This is plenty late in the morning to be getting up." Hange bounced over to Mina and started checking the computer.

"Or not!" Mina whined. "I'm sick, I should be allowed to sleep in. Doesn't sleep help your immune system or something?"

"Theoretically," a bored-sounding voice suddenly came from the doorway. "But that probably doesn't matter in your case." It was the doctor from the previous day, and he'd brought two other doctors with him. One was tall, smiling, and pretty well chiseled. Especially his eyebrows. Oh, Mina wouldn't mind having a conversation with those eyebrows sometime. They were pretty spectacular. The other man looked kind of shaggy—a bit like a honey-haired dog with 5 PM scruff. And like a dog, he...sniffed.

"This is starting to feel like one of those bad eighties sitcoms," Mina mumbled. 

"Eh?" Hange asked.

"Nothing!"

"Mina, right?" Eyebrows asked, nodding at her. 

"Yeah, that's me."

"Nice to meet you Mina, I'm Dr. Erwin Smith, head of the floor. I believe you met Dr. Ackerman yesterday?"

"Hmm, did I?" Mina tipped her head to the side on the pillow, pretending to think. "There was some midget with a tacky undercut who barged in at one point, but I never got a name."

"Oh?" Erwin said, raising an eyebrow at the much-shorter man. Levi scowled and looked away.

"Levi!" Hange scolded. "You didn't even introduce yourself?"

"Oh shut up, Four-Eyes!" he growled. "Why don't you do something useful for once and make all of us some coffee instead of "

Hange grinned slightly too widely for Mina's comfort. " _Great_ idea, Levi! I'll make a huge pot. You'll be the first to get some when I'm finished—it'll be unlike anything you've ever tasted before!" Then she left, counting out measurements of coffee grounds and arsenic under her breath.

"Is she actually going to poison you?" Mina asked, mildly concerned.

"Levi, maybe," the third doctor laughed. "She likes Erwin and me too much. I'm Doctor Mike Zacharias, by the way. You can call me Mike."

"Nice to meet you," Mina said. "So is there a reason all three of you are here?"

"Since I'm the head of the floor it's my job to oversee every patient's treatment plans. Dr. Ackerman is the general floor doctor, so he'll be the one dealing with most of your treatment. Mike here is our best cardiologist. He's going to check you out and see if our suspicions are right."

"Okay, I understand that part, but I think you missed the step where you explain what you think is wrong with me and also how long I'm going to be here and when I can ever see Mr. and Mrs. Everett again."

"I'm so sorry, you're right! We're not sure how long you'll be here, but it'll definitely be an extended stay. We can't just let you go home if you can't even stand up safely. But I promise you we'll do our best to get you better as soon as humanly possible. Your foster parents will be coming by in the early afternoon to visit, and they said they'll bring some of your things with them. And as for what's wrong, I'm going to leave that to Dr. Zacharias. He understands it better than I do."

"So what's wrong with me?" Mina asked Dr. Zacharias.

"What Levi first guessed, and what I suspect as well after looking over your records, is something called POTS. Have you ever heard of it?"

"No, what is it? Some kind of disease from inhaling too much second-hand smoke in the school parking lot?" Levi actually snorted when Mina said it.

"No," Mike smiled. "It's an initialism for Posturial Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, because no one wants to bother actually saying that mouthful. It's normally diagnosed using a tilt-table test, but since that's probably not a great idea for you right now we can do the slightly less-official version here. I just have to watch your pulse and blood pressure readings on that monitor you're hooked up to while you're laying down, sitting, and standing. Think you can manage that?"

"Yeah, but...could we maybe...not do the standing thing?"

"I'll tell you what," he said. "We'll try it, at least, and if you need to stop we will. Okay?"

"Okay," Mina sighed. "Might as well get this over with."

* * *

 

Two hours later, Mina was near tears curled up in bed with a migrane, a new IV, a fog of dizziness that was only just starting to pass, and finally a real diagnosis.

"Welcome to the merry band of people with chronic health issues," Levi had told her while he and Erwin settled her back in the bed and her the whole world was swimming around her. "Sorry that you didn't get a choice in the membership. It gets easier, I promise." Erwin and Mike offered some reassurances, Mina begged them to not let anyone in for the next forty years and also to please close the blinds, and then they were gone and Mina was alone with her very mixed-up thoughts.

On the one hand, she finally knew. And she finally had people helping her, a chance to fix whatever was wrong with her (or at least alleviate the symptoms, since there wasn't a cure). But on the other hand...this was a life changing thing. As in, there was  _no going back._ _Ever._ She would always live with this. Maybe she wouldn't always have symptoms (she could only hope), but it would always be a thing. 

POTS was, as Dr. Zacharius had put it, "a thing. It's a thing you can live with." Well yeah, okay, it was good to know that it wasn't a deadly or super-super-disabling thing. But...it sucked that she had to _end up with_ a thing at all. What if she didn't want the thing? What if she didn't want to "live with" the thing forever? How come she never got a choice?

"This just sucks," Mina whispered as she buried her hot, teary eyes in the pillow.

Down the hall, though neither of them knew it, an exhausted boy named Armin had just been given similar news and shared her sentiment wholeheartedly.

* * *

 

Through a wholly unordinary series of events plus Hange, Mina and Armin ended up meeting over the next day or so and discovering that since Armin's Chronic Fatigue Syndrome put him at such a level of physical exhaustion that he couldn't do much more than Mina really, they made a pretty good pair. Both of them were nerds, it seemed, and they evidenced this by somehow sweet-talking Erwin into rigging up an upside-down whiteboard for them to illustrate Calculus concepts on while they studied together.

"The stupid thing is that I can't even sit up in bed for more than ten minutes max and the school still expects me to do all the work, and you can barely hold up the textbook half the time and they want you to take your midterm with no extension," Mina grumbled.

"You said you like the homework," Armin pointed out.

"Yeah, but it's the principle of the thing!"

Armin laughed. He was exhausted and pretty sad-looking most of the time, and Mina had made it her mission to change that. She loved making him laugh.

 

 

Unwillingly stuck in beds and chairs, Mina and Armin were brimming with pent-up restlessness and a whole lot of boredom. Which, for two above-average intellects with none of their usual activities couldn't possibly result in anything other than beautiful, glorious, mad-genius disaster. Add in the ever-willing-to-help-Hange and her own brilliant ideas, and...well...Floor 3 was about to be turned upside-down in all the best ways.

 


End file.
